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Only when pavement tore into my pads and the metallic bite of blood wafted upward did I return to reality. I was on a deadline, not running for the sake of running. Rather than fleeing the hate in my twin’s eyes, I should have found a phone, called Justice, and drawn the threads of our tattered family in.
Too late now. Or was it? The alley I passed through smelled of a familiar blend of pine needles and spilled oil. If I wasn’t much mistaken, I’d traveled this way while fleeing from Slim the previous night. Which meant....
A one-minute detour led me to that same empty doghouse inside which Slim’s cell phone waited. I slid out of my pelt, powered up the device, then placed a call.
The connection rang and rang and rang without answer. I was soaked in sweat, yet still I shivered. Justice wouldn’t ignore me. He knew my mission.
“Bastion is worse. Much worse,” Grace had told me when I came out of Clarence’s room that morning. Had Bastion’s health deteriorated so rapidly that Justice couldn’t even answer his phone?
There was no way of knowing other than continuing my journey. So I curled back into my pelt, licked my bleeding paws once, then returned to the marathon. Running, running, running. At least I’d arrive with a fully charged skin.
Except...that didn’t turn out to be the case. Halfway there, electricity infused my body. Three-quarters of the way, exhaustion began sucking the electricity back into my muscles to fuel limping steps.
By the time I turned onto Luke’s street, only the image of a tall, calm werewolf was keeping me going. Luke wouldn’t be here, but I’d smell him as soon as I reached his doorstep. His home would open up to me, more den-like than the motel we’d moved out of. His strength would infuse me as I raced against the clock.
Only, I was wrong about that also. Luke was here. His back was straight, tall, easy as he walked down the sidewalk away from me. His motions were smooth as he stopped to tap on the window of a familiar car.
I froze, lupine throat unable to yell out a warning. If Luke stepped away from Slim’s vehicle now, we could sneak around the back together and ditch the tenacious investigator. With Luke on our side, maybe my thread of a plan to take down Clarence would turn into a proper noose.
But it was too late. The window cranked down slowly, words flowing easily into my perked ear tufts. “This is public property,” Slim blustered, like a pint-sized poodle menacing a werewolf. “I can stay out here as long as I like.”
Luke shrugged. The werewolf had no reason to emphasize his obvious superiority. “Sure. It just seems inefficient. I watch you watching my house. How about you come inside and we drink a beer together? Might be smarter for the two of us to talk.”
For a split second, my aching paws eased. Luke was doing the job I’d left for him.
The trouble was, protecting Slim from a murderer was no longer an important matter. And...I couldn’t tell Luke that in wolf form. Didn’t have time to do anything other than energize Bastion and scurry back to my twin’s side.
Slinking along the fence separating Luke’s house from the neighbor’s, I leapt through the open kitchen window in the form of my wolf.
***
THE HOUSE FELT ABANDONED, empty. Gathering clouds plunged the afternoon interior into dimness. Somewhere, a faucet dripped.
I dashed up the stairs before shifting on the landing. The pelt that landed on the carpet before me wasn’t vibrating with energy, but it was still charged. Still useful. Grabbing the fur tight, I burst into Luke’s bedroom and wasted one second checking the clock on the wall.
It had taken me twenty minutes to get here. Minor setback with Slim aside, my plan to energize my cousin and use him as a secret weapon was feasible. I just needed to get Justice to help me carry Bastion downstairs....
“I found it,” I started. But before I could explain further, the deep bend in Justice’s back struck me. There were tear tracks on his cheeks. The rank scent of sweat turned foul was decipherable even to my human nose.
Justice swallowed, then offered two words that opened up a black hole in my stomach. “Too late.”
I expected him to stand, to kick over a trash can, to punch through the drywall. Instead, he continued cradling the hand of his twin, gently caressing the palm with his forefinger. He didn’t move even when I joined them, fumbling at Bastion’s throat for a pulse.
Nothing. Not even the butterfly wingbeat of a fading heartbeat. I might as well have been handling a corpse.
I was the one who swore then, refusing to believe my own senses. I ripped back the covers, tore the buttons on Bastion’s silk nightshirt in my haste to bare his chest.
My pelt resisted as I pressed it skin-down against my cousin. It swiveled in my hands, landing fur-soft against Bastion’s face instead.
“There’s no point in smothering him.” Justice’s voice was a monotone. “He’s dead already.”
I refused to believe that. “He isn’t.”
Never mind that Bastion’s pulse still refused to materialize. I massaged the supple leather in the center of my pelt. Found the spot I was looking for. Squeezed.
I gasped as my own heart hiccuped. My fingers pressed once more against Bastion’s throat. Testing. Imploring.
Still no pulse.
Then Justice was there beside me. His fingers replaced mine on his twin. There was a glimmer of hope in his question. “You think this will work?”
“I think it’s worth trying.” I squeezed again and again, forcing my heart rate to increase past the easy drumbeat of rest and into the cadence of running. Past running into sprinting, into the mad dash of adrenaline-laden terror as I fled from a fate worse than death.
Bastion couldn’t fade away. I wouldn’t let him. I would chase his soul to the ends of the earth if that’s what it took to drag him back to us.
I was gasping now, pain radiating through my body. But I didn’t ease up the pressure. Just kept clenching my fist into my pelt over and over and over until a hand pushed mine aside.
“It can’t be too late.” My chin was wet, but I didn’t bother swiping at it. Instead, I turned to Justice, ready to fight him if that’s what it took to continue my supernatural CPR.
But Justice was smiling. Two fingers rested beneath Bastion’s chin. His other hand had slid beneath my pelt. Which meant...
It was a third hand that had brushed mine off the pelt I’d been massaging. That hand didn’t belong to Justice.
Bastion was awake.
***
TOGETHER, JUSTICE AND I flipped my pelt over. Curled the fur around Bastion’s body so my skin touched his skin.
The tingles of energy withdrawing from my torso were joyful agony. I squeezed Bastion’s hand as hard as I’d squeezed our shared heart.
I wanted to stay there forever, but the clock hadn’t stopped ticking while we were working. “We have to go.” There wasn’t time to explain everything. Still, I did my best to hit the highlights while I dragged myself away from the cousin I didn’t want to stop touching and pulled on yet another set of clothing.
“You think that’ll work? Using him as, what, a Trojan horse?” A minute ago, Justice and I had been united in our shared goal of saving Bastion. Now, he eyed me askance. “My brother is too weak to stand.”
“I can do it.” Bastion’s voice wobbled, the timbre so scratchy we could barely understand him. He tried to push himself up into a seated position, and I knew the moment he realized he’d fail and instead turned the aborted gesture into a straightening of his collar. “I’ll be stronger in a minute,” he added, letting his eyes droop shut as he slid back down into the bed.
Justice raised one eyebrow at me before gathering his twin up into his arms and following me down the stairs. “You expect him to snatch his wolfsfell back from a serial killer then, what, shift and take him out?”
“Bastion doesn’t have to shift,” I promised. “Clarence has cancer. He’s been stealing all of his energy from Bastion. Break that connection and Clarence will be the one barely able to lift his head.”
“I can lift my head.” Bastion didn’t bother opening his eyes as he answered, but he really did sound better. No wonder since my legs were already turning to spaghetti. I grabbed the railing to steady myself, which is when I noticed what I should have grasped from the get-go.
The living room below us wasn’t empty. Instead, Slim had actually taken Luke up on his offer of a cold one. And he must have asked for a refill too, because he’d been left alone to amuse himself on his host’s couch.
A nearly empty beer bottle dangled from one hand as Slim peered up at us. His eyes, as usual, were full of interest and intelligence. He’d heard—and understood—every word.